Creative Lab for the Arts, Performance, Emerging Technologies and AI
BMO Lab presents a screening of Montreal artist Dale Hayward’s award-winning film “BONE MOTHER,” a work created entirely with the use of 3D printing. Join us after the screening for a talk with Dale and an exhibition of the physical artifacts.
A vain and arrogant youth dares to enter Baba Yaga’s living house of bones. What emerges will forever fill our nights with terror.
With its largest-ever gift to a single Canadian institution, BMO Financial Group is investing $5 million to explore the potential of artificial intelligence and other revolutionary technologies in a novel way. The BMO Lab for Creative Research in the Arts, Performance, Emerging Technologies and AI, an initiative of the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies, will harness the latest technological developments to create new forms of human expression.
Through multidisciplinary work and performances, the BMO Lab will engage the public in critical conversations about the changing role of technology in our lives. Students who participate in the BMO Lab will gain a deep understanding of how to use AI and other emerging technologies to answer challenges facing governments and businesses today.
“AI is rapidly changing how we work, create and live,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “Thanks to this visionary gift from BMO Financial Group, the BMO Lab will bring together researchers and students from across the university to explore the potential for AI and other advanced technologies to enable creativity in human expression. At the same time, it will empower a new generation of leaders to apply this technology in solving problems and addressing new challenges.”
Based at the Faculty of Arts & Science, the BMO Lab will build on U of T’s strengths in the arts and humanities, and on the university’s leading role in the development of artificial intelligence. Through its innovative teaching and unique performances, the BMO Lab will engage with advanced research at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and complement the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society’s mission to address the social and ethical implications of AI and other emerging technologies.
The BMO Lab for Creative Research in the Arts, Performance, Emerging Technologies and AI hosted a reception for internationally acclaimed theatre and opera director Robert Wilson in honour of his Lifetime Achievement Award from the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies. To learn more about the event, visit our events page.
The BMO Lab for Creative Research in the Arts, Performance, Emerging Technologies
Friedrich Kirschner is a professor for digital media in puppetry at the renowned Ernst Busch School of Performing Arts in Berlin. He is a theater director and software developer, devising participatory performances, social simulations and interactive installations. He is a Professor for digital media at the University of Performing Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin, and since 2018, head of the Master’s program Spiel & Objekt. He presented and discussed the range of works that he and his students create and perform as they explore the relationship between digital technologies and performance. To learn more about the event, visit our events page.
Below is an excerpt from Friedrich Kirschner’s presentation.
BMO Lab Director David Rokeby was invited by the Vector Institute to give the inaugural Distinguished Lecture on Creativity and Artificial Intelligence. He described his presentation, ‘Creativity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence’ as follows:
Artificial Intelligence research has provided an abundance of powerful tools for artistic creation in visual arts, music and the literary arts. But amazing tools, in themselves, do not necessarily make for a better, more creative artist. Artists exploring the creative applications for Artificial Intelligence are overwhelmed by the remarkable possibilities coming out of AI research, and simultaneously awash in questions about what this all means for their role as artist. In what ways can AI systems make me a better artist? Can an AI become a better artist than me? And who is the real author of the work created in collaboration with these systems?
– David Rokeby
David Rokeby explored these questions, reflecting on almost 4 decades spent creating through computation, and observing our human relationships with computational machines.
After the lecture, David sat down with Vector Faculty member Sageev Oore for an informal chat: